Juicing Junk Journalism
Neil Winton, a Brit, worked as a journalist and editor at the Reuters news agency for 32 years. During his term which began in the mid-1990s, he was the Global Science and Technology Correspondent citing that "the global warming story was top of my agenda." In the article, “When I Covered Climate Change for Reuters I Thought CO2 Was Certainly to Blame for Rising Temperatures. I Was Wrong”, he talks of his experiences during that time of his writing life.
Winton says that in his term with Reuters, the majority of the climate scientists he interviewed could not say with any degree of certainty or authenticity that manmade climate change was real. After illustrating that Reuters only wrote prejudicial articles in support of climate change, Winton, in part, writes, “The Left had lost all of the economic arguments by the 1990s, and its activists eagerly grabbed the chance to say free markets and small government couldn’t save us from climate change; only government intervention could do that. Letting capitalism run free was a certain way to ensure the end of the planet; smart Lefties should take charge and save us from ourselves.”
The crucial and critical assessments gleaned from Winton’s article are that climate change is solely a political issue and the journalists that write about the matter are handcuffed by the extreme partisanship of their employers, and further, these correspondents have no understanding of climate science or climatology. This is certainly not news, but rather another substantiation of oft-felt speculation.
Journalists assigned to climate by legacy media relentlessly search out activist climate scientists, or use anonymous experts, or, quite often, eco-politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists. As Winton says of Covering Climate Now (CCN) an organization counseling many in corporate media, “CCN advises journalists to routinely add to stories about bad weather and flooding to suggest climate change is making these events more intense.” Thus quite often, articles of storms, of every type are attributed to climate change, even without any provenance of science or guidance by scientists.
Winton further concludes that “The idea of a ‘climate crisis’ is not widely accepted, but partisans shout about it. It is a very vague claim and hard to define or prove. By Reuters standards shouldn’t this include a balancing view? Certainly, many people believe that there is such a crisis, but lots of people don’t. The idea climate change threatens the health, safety, and economic well-being of people worldwide is an assertion, not a fact.” I maintain that the “many people who believe”, do so, not as a concept or consideration of science, but rather as a fundamental component and reinforcement of their political ideology and loyalty.
Progressively political climate change is a major element of the left’s posture and position one that reflects the unconditional failings of man. If one is to characterize the reasons and rationale for historical removal or revision, social and environmental injustices, economical inequities, white supremacy, and most all leftist issues, including the free market, one will see these are all failures of man. And, the only plausible and feasible fix is to give power and control to the left, those who claim they are the only ones that can save us from us.
Quoting American journalist, satirist, and cultural critic, H.L. Mencken, “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve. This is true even of the pious brethren who carry the gospel to foreign parts.” The gospel in this case comes from the altars, aims, and, articles of the mendacious messiahs of the Church of Corrupt Climatology.